5 Senses
by Mr. Handsome
Summary: 5 little stories centered around BB and Raven that, just for fun, each begin with one of the five human senses.
1. 1 Sound

A loud, blaring series of Midi notes jarred Raven out of the novel she'd been reading. She reluctantly rose up from her reading chair and exited her room. She didn't want to leave her sanctuary, but she knew the problem wouldn't solve itself. As she neared the living room the music grew louder, now accompanied by chiming sounds and small explosions. She entered the room and found the source of the disturbance.

Beast Boy.

Of course.

He was playing some video game. One that apparently involved moving a blue guy with red shoes and a spiky haircut, followed by an orange fox with two tails, around various loops and spins while destroying robots.

Whatever.

"Beast Boy," she half-growled through gritted teeth. "Do you mind keeping it down a bit?"

"Huh?" the changeling said, looking up and blinking. "Oh, sorry Raven, guess I wasn't paying attention." He picked up a nearby remote and turned down the volume to a reasonable level and zoned back into the game.

Raven was about to head back to her room but part of her was curious. Why was Beast Boy playing such an old game? It was even 2-D; Raven didn't know much about video games but even she could tell this one was… primitive.

She sighed. As much as she had a reputation of disinterest to maintain she hated unsatisfied curiosity.

"That doesn't look like the games you usually play," she noted to the green guy on the couch.

"Yeah, this is an older one," BB replied distractedly, never taking his eyes off the screen. "Sonic the Hedgehog 2. A classic. Great sound, awesome gameplay, and fun levels. Just look at all the imagination that went into this."

As Beast Boy completed the current level he was on, he turned around and offered Raven a second controller.

"Wanna play, Rae? You can be Tails. He's Sonic's friend there and helps out."

"You should know better than that," Raven said in her monotone. "I don't play video games. They're pointless."

"Your loss," Beast Boy shrugged, turning back as the next level started up. Something called "Chemical Plant Zone 1.

Raven rolled her eyes as she left the room. He should count himself lucky she hadn't just unplugged the system and made him start over.


	2. 2 Smell

Something smelled like it was burning.

Raven looked over from her spot on the couch to the kitchen area. Sure enough, Cyborg and Beast Boy were arguing over breakfast. The green vegetarian and half-machine omnivore could never go more than a week without fighting over what the other was making for food. The only real question was who's food was about to catch fire _this_ time.

If Raven had been a gambler, she'd have put money on Beast Boy's.

Sure enough, a few seconds later the changeling cried out. "Oh man! I forgot about my tofu burgers! Thanks for distracting me, Cyborg!"

"Psh, like you needed my help," Cyborg returned. "You have the attention span of a goldfish!"

Raven supposed the right thing to do would be to get up and make the boys stop their senseless bickering. She knew they didn't really mean it anyways. But on the other hand… did she really care enough to get involved?

Suddenly, the sound level rose and a couple crashing sounds were made. Shouts of "Take this!" and "Oh yeah?" were heard. Raven could hear pots being knocked over and food being spilled. She almost smiled to herself, the doofiness of her teammates really was too amusing sometimes… if not a bit irritating. Then with no warning, a piece of mushed tofu flew out of the fight and landed on Raven's cloak.

Everything stopped.

Cyborg and Beast Boy froze. It had been an accident, everyone knew that, but still, Raven wasn't known for her love of food fights. She rose up and turned to face the two boys.

Her eyes narrowed. Cy and BB held each other on the verge of panic, their differences forgotten in the face of their mutual doom. All at once, every food item lying around the kitchen became enveloped by a black aura and hurled itself at the helpless duo. Within seconds the two were covered in tofu, eggs, ham, ketchup, and soda from head to foot.

"You two should really be more careful," Raven said as she passed by them on the way to the laundry room. "It'd be a shame if there was an accident with our cutlery."

The two aspiring chefs looked at each other, blinked, and fell backwards on the floor. Yep, just another day in the Titan's kitchen.


	3. 3 Sight

He saw her come out onto the rooftop. Even though it was night he could still see her outline against the stars. And he could guess why she was here.

At first it had just been a normal call. Some thieves are robbing a bank, the Titans go in, beat 'em up, and hold them for the police. Pretty standard.

Except for the last guy.

The one who'd been around back and thought he could sneak up on them.

The one who'd pointed the gun at Raven.

The instant he saw that Beast Boy reacted, turning into a large brown bear and clawing at the man's neck. Ripping his throat out in the space of two heartbeats.

He hadn't meant to… kill him… not really… His only thought was to make the man _stop_. To stop and not be able to hurt Raven. There wasn't time to think any further than that. Turned out killing him was the quickest, surest way to stop him.

No one held it against him, of course. This line of work was dangerous, everyone knew it. The man had a loaded gun pointed at someone; there couldn't be a more clear-cut case of defense. Robin had talked to him on the way back to the Tower. Though the Titans tried to avoid anything fatal, everyone agreed there had been no help for it this time. It was either him or Raven. Beast Boy had done the right thing, Robin said. They all had said.

But he didn't believe it.

If it had been Robin in his place, he would have found some non-lethal was to stop the man. Some move or gadget to safely disarm him. Cyborg or Starfire for that matter; they'd have thought of something. But not him. Not ol' BB. Not smart enough to find another way. And now someone, dangerous or selfish as they may have been, someone was dead. Because of him. And now she'd want to talk about it.

He'd gone to the roof as soon as they'd gotten back. To be alone, to think. As often as she'd yelled at him to leave her alone; now she was gonna talk to him when he'd really rather not… it was kinda funny, Beast Boy thought with a small, wry grin.

But the grin quickly faded. What was he supposed to say? To do? No words could change anything. What happened, happened. This is the way it went, end of story. He didn't even want to be thanked. Thanked for taking a life? No thanks.

Raven was close now. Almost right next to him. But she hadn't said a word yet. Beast Boy tensed up, waiting for the beginning of what would certainly be a painful conversation. What was she waiting for?

Suddenly, with no warning, she embraced him. And in that embrace was all compassion, understanding, and gratefulness that Beast Boy so sorely missed in himself. A couple moments passed and she let go. She turned around and headed back downstairs. They would never speak of this, the changeling realized. The next time they meet it will be as if the wretched day never took place. Because that's how he wants it to be.

But he knows, and he knows she knows. They'll both remember that for this one moment on the top of the Tower, under a cold starry night, she thanked him for what he had done and understood his suffering.

And that was good enough for him.


	4. 4 Taste

It tasted good. Surprisingly good, Raven really didn't think Beast Boy could cook this well. When he had insisted on making dinner Raven was dubious. His story sounded sincere enough. She had to do a late night patrol, so he'd be a nice guy and have something ready for dinner when she got back. But Beast Boy was known for his love of pranks, and with everyone else already asleep this would have been the perfect setup. Raven was still wary.

"So, what do you think?" The green shape-shifter asked. "Starfire helped me out, so she gets part of the credit."

Raven swallowed carefully. Starfire, though enthusiastic to help, wasn't good at making human dishes. She could make meals from her home planet; however, they were usually incompatible with earthling digestive tracts. There was no strange aftertaste to the meal though, so Beast Boy must have been watching her carefully when she helped.

"It's good," Raven said turning slightly to look at him. "I didn't know you were such a good cook."

"What can I say?" BB replied with a wide grin. "If I learned to make edible food while fighting with Cyborg I guess I can make awesome food when I'm not interrupted."

"This was still really nice of you," Raven said. She knew Beast Boy had a relatively short attention span; if he had been planning a joke he would have probably sprung it by now. This seemed to be sincere.

"Heh, it only seemed fair," the changeling said. "You had to do a late sweep, I figured the least I could do was make you a decent dinner."

Raven allowed herself a small, friendly laugh. "You know, when you aren't going out of the way to be a pain, you can be a pretty sweet guy."

Silence.

Total silence.

Raven couldn't believe she had said that. It was late, she was tired, that was all. She needed sleep, she must, to have gone and embarrassed them both by saying that. She rose up and turned to leave.

"Hey Raven," Beast Boy said, a note of seriousness coming into his voice. "I don't suppose you'd want to go out and eat sometime… just the two of us? There are a couple good places in town you might… you know… wanna try out."

Raven froze for a moment, a dozen different thoughts in her head at once. This was a bad idea. This was great! She, both of them, could get hurt. Yeah, but it could hurt if she _didn't_ try and regretted it later. To take a risk or not? Well, what's the point of life if you're not gonna try… but maybe this is too much…

Aw, what the hell?

"Sure, that'd be nice BB," she replied, looking at him over her shoulder with a small smile.

She then turned, left the room, and headed for bed. Beast Boy stood still for a couple seconds, smiled, said "Yes!" to himself, and started cleaning up while humming a random tune.


	5. 5 Touch

He could feel her hands on the back of his head. Trying to impose some kind of order on the chaos that was his hair.

"Wow BB, this is worse than I thought it would be," Raven noted as she narrowed her eyes in concentration and made a couple of careful snips.

"Heh, sorry Rae, I guess I kinda let it slip," Beast Boy replied a tad sheepishly. Though not paying attention to his hair was normal behavior for the changeling, it now caused him some slight embarrassment in front of his girlfriend.

"Don't worry," Raven said with a small smile. "I'm sure we can get it under control."

For the next few minutes the two sat in silence, the only noise being the _snip snip_ of Raven's scissors. She would occasionally wet a comb and pass it through his hair to make it more manageable. The light clink of the comb against the small water jar and the feeling of her hands moving through his hair was relaxing to him; he almost felt like nodding off.

More time passes. He feels the slight tugs she makes when she clips another lock of hair. It feels good, and getting all this extra hair off is nice, too. Finally she sets her implements down, brushes off his neck, and hands him a mirror.

"There, what do you think?" she asks.

"This is good," Beast Boy says, looking at his new now-reasonable though still cool-looking hair. "It's short enough to be comfy but not so short that it's dorky! Thanks, Rae."

"No problem," she replies, taking the mirror and laying it back on the table with everything else. Then, out of pure mischief, she takes both her hands and scruffs up his hair as much as she can.

"Hey!" he yells, trying to catch her hands and turn around at the same time. "That's it," he grins sinisterly. "I'm gonna mess you hair up so much you won't even recognize yourself!"

Raven realizes he has an advantage here. His hair is usually semi-messy anyways, it looks better that way, so there's really only so much damage she can do. Her hair, on the other hand, looks best when it's neat and orderly. He can scruff her up more than she can him.

Finally, after several minutes of play-fighting, the two agree to a truce. "After all," Beast Boy laughs, "The turtle always beats the hair!" He quickly transforms into a small green turtle and ducks into his shell before Raven can reach him again.

The sorceress rolls her eyes at the bad joke.

The End


End file.
